Product Description

Born in the big, old Calcutta house on the same tragic night that both their fathers were mysteriously lost, Sudha and Anju are cousins who share everything. But when Sudha discovers a terrible secret about the past, their mutual loyalty is tested.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #131935 in Books
• Published on: 1999-11-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 347 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni made an indelible impression on the literary world with her first novel, The Mistress of Spices, a magical tale of love and herbs. Sister of My Heart is less reliant on enchantment but no less enchanting as it tells the tale of two cousins born on the same day, their premature births brought on by a mysterious occurrence that claims the lives of both their fathers. Sudha is beautiful, Anju is not; yet the girls love each other as sisters, the bond between them so strong it seems nothing can break it. When both are pushed into arranged marriages, however, each discovers a devastating secret that changes their relationship forever.

Sister of My Heart spans many years and zigzags between India and America as the cousins first grow apart and then eventually reunite. Divakaruni invests this domestic drama with poetry as she traces her heroines' lives from infancy to motherhood, but it is Sudha and Anju who give the story its backbone. Anju might speak for both when she says: "In spite of all my insecurities, in spite of the oceans that'll be between us soon and the men that are between us already, I can never stop loving Sudha. It's my habit and it's my fate." Book-lovers may well discover that reading Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is habit-forming as well. --Margaret Prior

From the Publisher
A compelling and passionate novel of the old and the new India.

About the Author
Born in India, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni lives near San Francisco with her husband and two children. She teaches creative writing at a local college, and is the coordinator for a helpline for South Asian women. She is the author of several award-winning volumes of poetry, as well as Arranged Marriage, her acclaimed collection of short stories, a bestseller in America and winner of the PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Prize for fiction, an American Book Award, and the Bay Area Book Reviewers Award for fiction. She is also the author of two novels, The Mistress of Spices and Sister of My Heart.

Customer Reviews

Fulfilling and entertaining
This book is beautifully narrated, with vivid imagination and excellent potrayal of life of Indians. It feel as though you are in India.
The author has drawn up on her own personal experience in India and America, which is well delivered in this tale of two young girls Anju and Sudha.
A finial note to end my review,, that it is fulfilling and a great joy to read.

I loved this book, I lived in it for a week of commuting
All I can say is that if Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni had written as many books as Anne Tyler and Margaret Atwood I would be a very happy person as there would be so much more of her magical world to inhabit. I'm longing for her new book to appear, having read everything else. I have to say that if you haven't read anything by her, start with this one and then read the Mistress of Spices as the novels are better than the short stories - and the reason why is that her short stories are so good you feel bereft after the few pages you have because you feel there's a novel in each one waiting to be written.

Over whelming
this book was well written and breathtaking in every sense, I was a little unsure before starting but as soon as I read the first page I was intrigued, Into the story of Sudha and Anju ....
With writing that made me laugh "its an unfair world where women are expected to have husbands and feel grateful for them as well and it time it made me cry and feel true sorrow for the charecters,"if only I could burn away my past like this .

I will only say a few more words,
Once you have read this book you will feel like you have experienced something else...